Beauty and a Heartbeat by Awkwardauthor
by Straight thru the Heart Fics
Summary: He broke his promise to love her unconditionally. She is left in pieces in the aftermath. Can a different heartbeat be what a broken beauty needs to let go?


**Entry for the Straight Through the Heart Contest**

 **Title:** Beauty and a Heartbeat

 **Summary:** He broke his promise to love her unconditionally. She is left in pieces in the aftermath. Can a different heartbeat be what a broken beauty needs to let go?

 **Pairing:** Jasper/Rosalie

 **Rating:** M

 **Word count:** 3,849

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own any publicly recognizable characters herein. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

The world is a cruel place.

Thunder rumbles somewhere in the distance. A few raindrops fall from the gray-hued sky. The slow drizzle quickly turns to a steady downpour.

I curse to myself. Just my luck not to have an umbrella.

Puddles appear on the sidewalk. I put the hoodie on of my jacket. It's all I have for now.

The rain continues. The tears that I held back now flow freely down my cheeks. At least the sky decided to cry with me.

I should have known. I should have known better than to give my whole heart to him. What was the point in trusting him in the first place? He wanted to be with me. I let myself fall for him.

My vision blurs. My clothes are soaked. Even if I run, there is no point. No matter where I go, my misery will follow.

I tilt my head up. I scream. Louder and louder. I scream until my voice grows hoarse.

Was one year not enough for him to love me?

More tears fall. I must go, or else I'll get pneumonia.

In an instant, I notice there are no more raindrops falling on my head. I turn my head. A blonde-haired boy with sky blue eyes holds an umbrella above our heads.

"Rosalie," he says.

"Jasper."

He stares at my drenched body. "Walk with me?"

I nod.

We walk together, side by side. I don't speak. Neither does he. The silence makes my sorrow slightly fade away.

"Where do you live?" he asks a couple of minutes later.

"Nearby." We walk until we reach an intersection. I point to the sign that shows the name of the street where my house is on. We turn and walk along that street.

We finally reach my house. There are no cars in the driveway. Good. My parents aren't home yet. I have time to mask away my foul mood.

"Thank you," I tell him. I'm grateful. He could have asked why I'm sad, but he didn't. That is what I like about Jasper. He knows how to act around people when they face certain emotions.

He follows me to the door. "I'll see you on Monday."

"Okay."

I reach inside the pocket of my jeans and pull out the house keys. I unlock the door. I step inside and, just as I'm about to close the door, I see him give me a small wave.

I wave back. My mouth curves into a small smile.

When he leaves, I close the door. I lean back and collapse on the floor.

The tears return.

* * *

 _ **Love is a wildfire. It burns you from the inside out.**_ Thirty minutes later, those are the only words I have on the page.

This should be easy. I have pages and pages of nothing but words put together like this. The words are puzzle pieces; some fit together seamlessly, but there isn't a complete picture.

I flip to a random page, reading the first line. _**Trapped in a spider web of lies, I tangle myself within.**_

Then to the page beforehand. _**We flow like water, but our bond is thicker than blood.**_

I close my red spiral notebook. That is enough writing for tonight. Crawling off the bed, I throw my pen back in my small cup of pens and pencils and place my notebook back on my bookshelf, squeezed between two David Levithan novels.

I turn around. I look at the wall behind my computer station. My eyes land on the photo of us during prom.

We were happy. My former self would be in disbelief if she knew what we have become. She would probably be laughing, joking that the only way we would break up is if someone paid us a million dollars to do so.

 _You'll get through this._ Has it just been twenty hours ago that the inevitable had happened? It's difficult to believe that he is no longer mine.

No tears fall. Instead, my body burns from rage. I've cried enough last night. My mind has locked away any trace of sadness involving him.

I'll be okay. Eventually.

For now, I'd rather be angry than wallow myself in self-pity.

* * *

Jasper doesn't say mention anything about Saturday. When I enter our Psychology 100 class on Monday morning, I see him sitting casually on his seat, glued to the screen of his iPhone.

I take my seat next to him, setting my backpack and black hydroflask on the table's wooden surface. Staring straight ahead, I wait patiently for Mr. Banner to begin class.

We sit there in silence. The silence remains until class begins. It lingers for the next 75 minutes. By the time Mr. Banner ends class, I wonder if Jasper has already forgotten about what happened.

I gather my things. He does the same. We look up at the same time.

Our eyes meet. Even without words, I sense his eyes giving me a message. _You'll be okay._ That is what his blue irises seem to be saying.

We head to the door. Outside the room, he finally speaks.

"See you Wednesday," he murmurs.

I nod, holding my hydroflask tighter. "See you then."

We walk away in opposite directions. His wordless gaze is ingrained in my head.

He hasn't forgotten.

* * *

The aroma of coffee fills my nose at the college campus's Starbucks. I'm sitting on a two-seater table next to the glass windows of the front entrance. A half-empty Venti chai tea latte is next to my MacBook Pro.

 _ **If promises are made to be broken, why do we still make promises? Promises bind you, engulfs you, maybe suffocates you until you are desperate to break free.**_ It was the first line I typed in my word document labeled "Heartstrings x Infinity." This is where I type words that are in my head whenever I'm at school. Once I'm at home, I transfer the day's phrases into the notebook.

The campus Starbucks is the first place I go when I need alone time. After daily afternoons and/or nights spent in Bella and Alice's or Emmett and Jasper's dorm, I need some time for myself. There are days when I'm dependent on the presence of my friends and days when I just want to be alone.

"Mind if I sit here?" a familiar southern voice asks.

I look up from my laptop screen. Jasper is there, one strap of his backpack resting on one of his shoulders, a Grande mocha frappe in hand. I quickly glance at the screen. 1:15. His next class must not start for another hour or so.

"Sure."

The chair's legs scrape along the floor's tiles. He unzips his backpack, taking out his binder. He places the bag on the floor and his drink on the table, then takes a seat.

My eyes scan the room. At this hour, the coffee shop is getting packed. There are no more seats available for students who want to be here alone.

I look back to him. Our eyes meet. We don't speak, though there is a hint of a smile forming on his face.

"What?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Nothing." He rips open the paper wrapping of his straw, dipping the long green plastic tube into his drink. He takes a sip.

It has been two weeks since he found me during that rainy day. He hasn't spoken a word about that Saturday.

Will he bring it up? I wouldn't be surprised if he did. He must have questions about why he saw me like that: drenched, miserable, and hopeless. At this point, I'm two out of three of those words.

He doesn't talk any more. So we sit here, surrounded by a flurry of voices, an unrecognizable tension between us.

I type on my laptop, sneaking glances at him every now and then. His hands are scribbling every now and then on a worksheet. He is probably doing homework for one of his classes.

Nearly an hour passes when I hear the sound of his binder closing. I glance at him again and watch as he shoves his binder back in his bag. He has also finished his drink.

He pushes the chair back. "Thank you for letting me sit with you."

I smile. "No problem." Like most strangers, he didn't attempt to make light talk with me. But like that Saturday, the silence was what I needed. His presence alone left a calming effect while I juggled between working on an English paper and typing down words that wanted to escape my mind.

"See you in Psych?"

"Yeah."

He nods, throws away his empty plastic cup, and walks out the glass door.

Strange.

I don't think I've ever met a man with very few words quite like Jasper.

* * *

I see him. He is a few feet away from me. He is with her, laughing at something she said.

What are the chances of running into him on the way to class? This is a huge college campus. The chances of running into a familiar face is slim. The chances of running into the man I have the least desire of seeing should be at a lesser margin.

I walk past them, treating the lovebirds as if they are nothing but another college couple. If it's easy for him to say "we're through," then it should be easy for me to treat him like he is nothing to me.

"I love you," I hear her tell him.

My resolve breaks. I pause in my footsteps, still within earshot.

"I love you too," he answers.

My heart cracks just a little more.

From the corner of my eye, I see him lean down to kiss her. I let out a raspy breath when their lips make contact.

It still hurts. The memory of that rainy day flashes back in my mind.

" _It should have been her."_

* * *

Candlelight illuminates my room. Raindrops pelt against my bedroom window. For some reason, today's rainy weather was enough to knock away the power. Luckily, I had a few spare candles around. Unluckily, those candles were part of his gift for my 18th birthday.

 _ **Brown to blue, there is a flicker of a flame when two polar opposites combine.**_

I'm writing again. Three weeks has passed. The hurt still hasn't gone away.

 _What have you done to me?_

Photos of us are no longer on the wall. Every photo of us is somewhere in my drawer, underneath sweatshirts and jeans. Maybe if I keep them there, I would gradually forget where I had put them until I forget about him entirely.

My friends are trying to help. Bella bought me another notebook. Alice took me shopping. Emmett gave me a $50 Starbucks gift card. They did their best, but their actions barely made a dent to get rid of my negative emotions.

 _ **A flame I once wished to disappear has now spiraled out of control.**_

My phone vibrates. Putting my pen down, I grab my phone and unplug it from its charger.

It's a text from him. _I'm sorry. Talk to me?_

He wants to talk now? He had every chance to talk to me since that Saturday. I bet he was busy being with her that he forgot about me. He forgot about the girl he said countless I love you's to for a girl he met when we first started college.

How could he love a girl he knew for six months?

I ignore the text, turning off my phone. If he wants to talk, it should be in person, without her around.

I pick up my pen and write one more line on the page. _**Your heart is blue. Blue like the sky, blue like the ocean, blue like my eyes, but blue like my tears.**_

It's not getting easier.

If not now, when?

* * *

One month passes.

Today would have been our first anniversary.

* * *

It's a sunlit day. The clouds are white and scarce in the sky. I'm jogging around the park. Nothing like a good run to keep me energized.

I'm surprised when I see Jasper there, a guitar settled on his lap. I pause the music on my phone and take my earphones off, shoving it into my shorts' back pocket.

He is singing. His smooth voice is like melting butter in my ears. It's the kind of voice I want to listen to before I fall asleep.

 _He's a musician too._ The thought surfaces a distant memory of him playing Breakeven by The Script when we were thirteen.

"Jasper!" I call out.

He stops playing. He grins when he sees me running toward him. "Hey, Rosalie."

I stop when I'm in front of him, taking a few seconds to catch my breath. When I start to breathe normally again, I kneel down and sit across from him.

"You play?"

He shrugs. "It's a hobby."

"What were you playing?"

"You wouldn't know it."

"It was good."

"Thanks." His finger brushes along the guitar's strings. "Want to hear more?"

"Yeah!" I would do anything to hear him sing again.

A second later, he is singing again, somber music playing from the instrument.

 _ **That night when the sound of rain echoed**_

 _ **The you inside my heart laughed**_

 _ **That tightly tied thread has come undone**_

 _ **What a cruel world**_

Holy. Shit.

There is actually a song that flawlessly captures what happened that day.

Honestly, Jasper sounds better than he does. I have never heard a song with beautiful words quite like that one. Those words resemble the kind of words I write in my notebook.

"W-wow," I stutter out when he finishes.

He chuckles, putting his guitar down on the grass. "The original song is in Japanese. That was one version of an English translation."

"What's the song called?"

"Crack by Hatsune Miku."

Hatsune Miku. I recognize the name. It's a Vocaloid artist. Bella is obsessed with Vocaloid music. She made me listen to a few songs before, though I never got around to getting into this particular genre of synthesizer music.

"Miku, huh? I know her."

He raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

"One of my best friends listens to a ton of Vocaloid music."

"The brunette one?"

"Yeah. How'd you guess?"

"She seemed like a Vocaloid fan. And I saw her with a Miku wallet once when I went to Subway."

I smile. Bella is fond of that wallet. I bought it for her as a Christmas present when we were high school freshmen.

"How'd you get into Vocaloid music?"

His hand touches the body of his guitar. "By my ex-girlfriend, Maria."

"Ex? What happened?"

"It's a long story. We were high school sweethearts. We went to different colleges. Unfortunately, long-distance didn't fair well on us. We broke up a couple months ago."

So Jasper experienced a recent breakup too. I didn't even know he had a girlfriend. We were in the same philosophy class last semester, though we never had a chance to speak to each other. Lecture-style classes didn't provide us much opportunity to do so.

"I'm sorry. You know, on behalf on the female population who don't try hard enough to keep a relationship going."

He cracks a smile. "It's alright. And we tried. But the distance was getting to us. The breakup was the right thing to do."

"And you were okay with that?"

"Yeah. I guess." He sighs. "It still hurts, you know? We were together for so long. I thought we had that kind of relationship that would last. I visited her for New Years, but that was when we broke up. We were awkward around each other. I knew then that it didn't matter if I still loved her. If that was how we'd be every time we see each other, then there was no point in staying together."

"I get what you mean." My mind drifts back to my own breakup. "You're not the only one with a recent breakup."

He scrunches his eyes. "You and that guy with the tan skin broke up?"

I nod. "His name's Jacob, by the way."

"Jacob… when did you two break up?"

My throat constrict.

Rain. Tears. Jasper.

It's too much.

"One month ago." I gasp out a breath. "Remember when you saw me in the rain?"

He gapes. "That day?"

"I just left Jacob's house. Turned out that an important thing he wanted to tell me was that he wanted us to break up." I let out a bitter laugh. "Turned out he was in love with another girl. No cheating whatsoever, but his feelings were elsewhere." The familiar fire starts to burn in my veins. "Turned out he fell in love with Leah at first sight." The internal inferno builds up. "Turned out that his feelings for Leah developed to a point that he realized he loved her more than me." My heart thuds erratically against my chest. "And it ultimately turned out that he has no regrets choosing her over me."

I'm a tornado of emotions. I'm overwhelmed. What am I doing? Why am I letting the thought of him tear me down again?

 _ **And in the wake of a wildfire, there is only ruins and ashes that remain.**_ If I had my notebook right now, that would be the line I'd be writing.

"Rose?"

My mind has pulled away from the real world. My thoughts are all about him, recalling shards of what we used to be.

" _I'll love you, Rose. Forever and always."_

" _You're my rose. Beautiful and with all the thorns."_

" _I love you. Only you."_

" _Please understand. I didn't mean for this to happen."_

" _Leah is who I want now."_

 _ **Every time the clock needle advances**_

 _ **I take this flaking away love**_

I blink. Jasper is singing again. It's a different tune, but it still has a similar somber tone as the previous song he played.

 _ **And burn it in this light to illuminate our story, my beloved**_

 _ **There's no way I could forget everything**_

 _ **Just that flame blazing in the background**_

 _ **I took your hand, and you showed me**_

 _ **A final dream**_

I breathe heavily. Once again, I'm drowning in the rich tone of his voice. When Jasper sings, the thought of him disappears. All I can focus on is the voice of a man that somehow knows how it feels to experience what I'm feeling.

"Rose," he says again.

I pant. "I'm… here."

"You okay?"

"Barely."

"Good enough." One of his hands reach out to pat my shoulder. "That was another Vocaloid song, by the way."

"I can tell." Why do English songs sound like crap compared to Vocaloid songs? I should have gotten into Vocaloids a long time ago. "What's it called?"

"Love Light. By Miku."

"It sounds sad."

"It's supposed to be. A lot of Miku songs using her dark append voice is."

"Dark append?"

"One of the many kinds of voices Miku has. It's the same with other Vocaloids. I love her dark append best. I learned to play many of her dark append songs."

"Was Crack a dark append song too?"

"Yeah." He pulls his hand away. "Listen, whatever Jacob did to you, you won't get over him instantly. It's normal to be hurt for a long time. But the hurt won't last forever. Maybe not today, tomorrow, next week, or even a year. Eventually, you'll live to see the day that thinking about Jacob won't hurt you."

"Have you stopped hurting over Maria?"

"No." He places his guitar back on the grass. "But that's why I have my guitar. It helps me heal. Singing Vocaloid songs is my personal therapy."

Personal therapy. That is what my notebook is to me.

"I don't sing, but I write," I tell him. "I have a notebook at home with a bunch of stuff that was on my mind that I wrote down."

"Can you come up with one right now?"

"Sure." Immediately, the words come out of my mouth naturally. " _ **Enveloped in our own bubble, the space between two people is not much of a space after all.**_ "

Whoa.

He smiles. "Nice. You could write songs with those words."

"I'm not a songwriter. That was Jacob's thing."

"But those were beautiful words. Like you."

I blush. Hearing Jasper call me beautiful is flattering, yet endearing.

"You think I'm beautiful?"

"Of course. A man would be blind not to."

"Thanks." He called me beautiful numerous times, but hearing Jasper call me beautiful feels different. The way he said it somehow replaces the pain of remembering every time Jacob has every called be beautiful.

"I don't get why this Jacob let you go. You're a cool girl. If I ever talked about my interest with Vocaloids to anyone, they would just give me a weird look. But you listened."

"It's what I do. Even if I had no idea what Vocaloids are, I would've still listened to your explanation." There is still warmth in my chest. But it isn't the raging, depressing fire I felt earlier. The fire is bearable, leaving a tingling sensation in my body. The fire is a kind of warmth that makes me feel… good.

It's a flame blazing in the background.

The warmth moves to my hand. I look down and see Jasper's own hand holding mine, fingers loosely tangling with my fingers.

" _ **The space of two people brings them closer together, until the space disintegrates altogether**_ ," I whisper.

"Are we those two people?" he whispers back.

"I guess we are."

I smile. So does he. I never would have believed that running into Jasper would end up like this. He is an intriguing person. He is someone I want to get to know.

He is a person where "something more" could actually happen.

"So…" he says.

"So…" I mirror back.

"Do you want to get some coffee?"

"Coffee? Are you pulling off a throwback pickup line?"

"Fine. Would you like to bang at my place?"

I giggle. "Your place is the dorms. With Emmett. I'll stick with the coffee."

"Coffee it is."

He lets go of my hand. We stand up, brushing away grass from our asses. When I look back at him, he is smiling that smile that I'm starting to love.

Love.

Could I learn to love this man?

 _Take it one step at a time, Rose._ Only time can tell. It's too soon to assume if there is a Jasper and Rosalie.

He holds out his hand, the same hand that I held seconds ago.

It's a possibility awaiting for me to take.

It's a dream that could end a distant dream and begin a new one.

So I seize the possibility. I hold his hand.

We are a man and a woman who parted from people we believed were our true loves. Their paths diverged until they intersected for the first time. Then the paths separated again, only to intersect again. The cycle continued, until there is one intersection that makes a difference.

 _The world isn't cruel to me anymore._

There is a new heartbeat filling a space in my life.

* * *

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